I Left My Platoon a Day Early. I Listened as the Viet Cong Killed My Replacement

[3Hotdogs]

7. My father-in-law was D-Day + 1. (2nd wave of soldiers on Normandy Beach.)

It was a couple of months later, he was driving a Jeep with his friend, Raymond in the "shotgun" seat. An explosion went off and Raymond was blown to shreds. F.I.L. got a couple of scratches.


The reason I know Raymond's name was that my ex was going to be named Raymond if she turned out to be a boy.

I never knew my F.I.L. before the war (for obvious reasons) but it was clear that his head was never "right."

A couple of times he would begin to show photos of himself during the war. One photo was of him on the patio of Hitler's "Eagles Nest," with the mountains in the background. He would begin showing such photos and then stop.

"Nobody cares about this."

R.I.P., Herb.